


17 cherry tree lane

by cheryltonis



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: Childhood Friends, Eventual smut maybe?, F/F, Flashbacks, Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Lots of it, Minor Character Death, Slow Burn, bear with me here, comp het era dani, it’s childhood friends to lovers but in a weird format, it’s soft i promise, we got angst, we’ll see
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 01:35:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29627133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheryltonis/pseuds/cheryltonis
Summary: jamie had always done whatever dani needed. she’d always been there when she needed her most. and dani was there for her too. that was how their friendship worked, even before they really became friends.or: jamie and dani have been friends since they were eleven years old and their bond has withstood the test of time. but now, just as they’re entering their thirties, dani’s life has taken a turn for the worse, and their friendship will be tested in a way that neither of them ever expected.
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie
Comments: 36
Kudos: 112





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> yeah okay so, hi. listen, i watched that show ‘firefly lane’ on netflix (i was baited into it tbh) and i was inspired. and several things in this fic will be directly inspired by moments from the show.
> 
> it might be a little messy. the format isn’t a typical childhood friends to lovers story that goes in chronological order. the story is going to take place in the ‘present day’ of 1990, but will have several flashbacks to dani and jamie’s past. but the main story takes place when they’re 30. hopefully it’s not as confusing as i’m making it out to be. 
> 
> i really am enjoying writing this so far and i have the first five chapters done, but updates will be every monday just so i can buy myself enough time to write the rest (and finish the camp epilogue and keep writing the lil moms au).
> 
> but anywho lemme shut up so you can read and decide how you feel about it for yourself. but also please don’t hate me. and thank you to my pre-readers/hype squad!
> 
> also there’s a tw for referenced/implied child abuse in this chapter

**August 1971**

“Why’s it so bloody hot?”

“It’s summertime, you fucking turkey.”

“Mum! Dad! Jamie said ‘fuck’!”

“Quiet, all three of you,” Louise Taylor rolled her eyes rather affectionately at her three children as they piled out of the Volkswagen van that had traveled across the ocean with them from England. 

“She _did_ say it,” Mikey huffed, lisping over his missing front teeth, “And she called Denny a turkey.”

This was a _nightmare_.

Dennis rubbed his tired eyes as if to wipe away the bags from underneath them. It had been a long few days since they started driving west from the New York harbor. A long few _months_ , really. Two exhausted, overworked parents with three kids who just couldn’t seem to get along, packing up their lives and moving to America? 

Everyone back home called them crazy. But Dennis and Louise hoped that the week-long boat ride followed by the three day road trip would all be worth it. In fact, the only time there was ever peace and quiet on this trip (aside from when they were all asleep) was when the ship pulled into the harbor as Lady Liberty loomed over them in the distance. Ominously welcoming.

“Listen, why don’t you all just go inside and pick out your rooms. Boys, you’ll share just like back home,” their father sighed, offering them something to look forward to. Though, all it got him was a small cheer from their youngest son who idolized his big brother, a string of endless, whining complaints from their eldest, and hearty, teasing laughter from their only daughter.

“Just go,” Louise ushered them along, watching with her husband as their kids raced through the open garage and into the empty house.

Jamie, just eleven, was glad to be away from the girls in their old town. But she had a feeling that the girls here would be just as bad, if not worse. She couldn’t understand why her parents packed them up and moved them across the ocean. To _America_ of all places. She’d sooner move to Antarctica. And the year she and her brothers were all meant to go different schools, no less. Mikey was going to the elementary school that was apparently just down the road from the campus of the two junior and senior high school buildings where she and Denny would go. 

_“It’s the land of opportunities,”_ her father had explained before going on about wanting a better life for them all. So far, the lush, green grass of their lawn was the only improvement. And their house was a much more spacious than their last. But other than that, rural Iowa was no better than rural Yorkshire. 

Racing her brothers through the house, she rounded a corner into one of the rooms, smiling as she looked out the window. She could already picture how she would set this room up. The twin sized bed that came with the slightly furnished house was against the wall, but she could move it to the corner. And her study desk could go by the window so she could overlook the backyard while she did her homework. And she could put—

“Called it!” Denny interrupted her plans as he came barreling into the room with Mikey in tow. 

“What? No, I was in here fir—“

“This room’s bigger than the other one. There’s two of us, we need more room,” the fifteen year old grinned with a smugness that he _knew_ pissed his little sister off, “Besides, this room has a better view.”

“I _know_ , that’s why I wanted it.”

“Let’s put it to a vote, then,” he smirked, winking down at their eight year old brother, “Those in favor of this being Jamie’s room?”

Jamie raised her hand, looking down at Mikey with eyes pleading for mercy. He was on her side sometimes. “Mikey, come on.”

“Those opposed?” Denny raised his hand and nudged the little boy’s arm with his elbow, making him raise his hand with his head hung in shame. He never liked being caught in the middle. “Looks like this room’s ours.”

“You’re such a knob sometimes,” Jamie rolled her eyes at him and gently shoved Mikey’s shoulder on her way out, mumbling a quiet, “Thanks a ton,” on her way out of the room and down the hall.

With the sound of her brothers giddily making plans for their room fading behind her, Jamie pushed open the door to the next room over, squinting in the dusty sunlight that came in through the window. The _only_ window. 

Well, it was a little smaller. And it didn’t have a view of the backyard. Instead she had a perfect view of the side of the house next door. Why the hell Americans decided to place their houses so close together was beyond her. If she looked hard enough, she could probably check the time on a wall clock through the window into the next house. With her luck, the person who occupied said room was probably some pervert who’d peep into her window every chance he got.

_Gotta remind Mum to patch up my curtains._

With a sigh, Jamie kicked her sneaker against the hardwood, groaning to herself before going to help unpack the van and the trailer hitched to the back. This was her new hell, might as well get cozy in it.

**xxx**

“Mikey, don’t talk with your mouth full, son,” Dennis chuckled. The youngest of the Taylor family insisted on chattering on about any old thing even when his mouth was stuffed with french fries that Dennis had brought home from the nearest burger joint.

“Mum, you’re gonna start cooking again once we get groceries, right?” Jamie deadpanned, picking the mayonnaise covered tomato off her cheeseburger with a grimace.

Louise just nodded, brushing long auburn hair from her face as she swallowed the bite she had in her mouth. “Yes, we’ll go tomorrow. Denny, I’ll need you to watch your brother and sister while we’re out. And I expect your rooms to be fully unpacked, I don’t want to see any boxes when we come back,” she pointed a finger across the wooden table at her three children with an accusingly raised eyebrow.

“But _Mummm!“_ Jamie and Denny whined in unison before attempting to talk over one another about how Denny wanted to ride their bike around the neighborhood and how Jamie was too old to be babysat.

“No ‘buts’. Fuck’s sake,” Louise pressed her fingers into her temples before getting up from the table and lighting a cigarette as she leaned against the kitchen counter.

Jamie slid down the wooden booth seat so she was closer to her father, reaching out to hold onto his arm. “Dad, come on, I’ll unpack my stuff tonight. I don’t wanna be babysat by… _him_ ” she paused to shoot a look of disgust to her older brother, “I’ll even go to the shop with you!”

“End of discussion, Jamie Louise,” he shot her a serious look, ending her argument before he ruffled her shaggy brown curls affectionately, “You’re gonna have to learn to get along eventually. Who knows, one day Denny might not be around and you’re gonna miss him bossing you around.”

“Yeah right,” she rolled her eyes, slumping back in the booth, picking at her mother’s forgotten fries. 

The ring of the doorbell made their heads shoot up before they looked around at each other curiously. Who the hell would be visiting them? They didn’t know anyone here yet.

“I’ll get it,” Jamie jumped out of her seat, her dirty sneakers thumping against the hardwood floors as she ran to the door, swinging it open. She looked up, expecting to see an adult, but instead her eyes trailed down to a girl about her height with pink ribbons holding her blonde pigtails in place, looking nervous as she held something that looked like it came out of a sci-fi movie. 

“Uh...hi?”

“Hi,” the girl’s voice trembled a little as she offered a twitchy smile, “Um...m-my mom wanted me to bring this over. It’s a jell-o mold. And she told me to tell you that Mrs. O’Mara from down the street should be bringing over a casserole tomorrow.”

The girl practically shoved the plate with the jiggly green dessert into Jamie’s hands before stepping back under the porch light, running her hands skittishly over the skirt of her floral pink dress. And before Jamie could even utter a semblance of gratitude, the girl was gone, running across the grass and up the steps of the next porch over.

“Who was it, Jamie?” Louise came up behind her, cigarette in hand as she looked around for their mysterious visitor. 

“Some girl. She gave me this,” the eleven year old held up the platter, wiping her hands on her overalls once Louise took it from her, “She ran off though. Guess she lives next door.”

“That’s nice. Maybe she’ll be your first friend here.”

Jamie scoffed as she followed her mother back to the kitchen, shaking her head. That girl that was just at her door seemed like everything she hated in the girls back home. Prissy little girls who cared more about looks than anything else. The same girls that would call her trash because she wore her brother’s old hand-me-downs instead of crisp new dresses. Jamie didn’t want friends like that. 

“I don’t think so.”

**October 1990**

With a heavy sigh, Jamie threw her truck in park as she pulled off to the side of the neighborhood street, looking up at the large house that loomed at the top of the small hill. She’d been parking her shitty truck from high school in this same spot for nearly the last decade, but it never ceased to amaze her what money could buy. Especially when that money came from a family inheritance rather than doing the work for it.

_Not the time or place to let your true feelings out, Jamie._

Gripping the steering wheel like a vise, the brunette breathed in deeply, urging herself to just let her feelings roll to the side. She’d been doing it for nearly twenty years, she could muster up the strength to do it again now. She could and she did as she hooked the strap of her black leather purse over her shoulder before getting out of the truck, checking for any runs in her black stockings as she straightened out the skirt of her slim black dress.

She took one last cleansing breath before she started up the walkway to the light blue house.

_”Light blue? With black shudders and a red door? Really?”_ his voice echoed in her head so clearly, she had half a mind to check that he hadn’t said it directly into her ear.

_”Jamie thought it was pretty. I think it’s a good idea.”_

A hint of a smile came to her face when she approached the spacious front porch, peering at the cushioned porch swing from the side of her eye.

_”You’ll still come visit, won’t you? I can’t do this without you,”_ her voice came through her mind again. 

_”You can,”_ Jamie remembered chuckling quietly as she pressed closer to her side under the warmth of the blanket as they watched the fireflies dance across the front yard, _”But I will. Promise. City’s only an hour away.”_

She tried not to think of how sparse the pinkie promises had become after that. Instead, she straightened her posture, adjusted the black blazer around her torso and poked at the doorbell that caused the familiar chime to ring through the large house. As usual, it didn’t take long for the door to open. But Jamie kept her eyes straight, expecting to see an adult. But instead, her eyes trailed down to find two heads of neatly styled brown hair; One head slightly more blonde than the other. 

“Hi, Aunt Jamie,” Miles greeted her a bit solemnly as Flora lunged forward to wrap her arms around Jamie’s waist. 

“Hey, you two. How you feeling?” she scooped Flora up, settling the five year old on her hip as she ran a hand smoothly over Miles’s combed hair, not wanting to ruin the neatly combed strands with a ruffling like she normally would. Their lack of response told Jamie all she needed to know. They weren’t doing too well. What kid _would_ be doing well after the death of a parent? Especially on the day of their funeral. 

“Hey, you know it’s okay to feel sad, right?” she lead Miles inside, adjusting Flora on her hip. The girl was getting too big to be carried around like a toddler, but Jamie would be damned if she wasn’t going to try to carry her until she went off to college. These kids were getting too old too fast. And worse, that meant she was too.

“I mean it,” she continued, glancing between the five and nine year olds, “Lots of people are gonna be sad today. So...it’s less embarrassing to cry when everyone else is crying with you, yeah?”

“I’ve never seen _you_ cry,” Miles commented, looking up at her with a frown, unshed tears shining in his eyes.

With a sympathetic smile, Jamie set Flora to her feet once more before she crouched in front of both of them. “I cry all the time. _All_ the time. How else do you think I keep all my plants watered, huh?” she gently poked their sides with each of her hands, managing to get a bit of a smile out of them. 

“Mummy cries all the time now,” Flora mumbled, looking at her aunt with a sadness that no five year old should have in their eyes. 

“Yeah, it uh…it might be like that for a little while, sprout. But I promise, everything’s gonna be all right. You always see the sun after a storm, right?”

“And rainbows,” her niece nodded with a slightly bigger smile, causing Jamie to breathe out a laugh.

“And rainbows,” she nodded in agreement, “Your mum’s just gotta get through the storm before she can see the sunshine and rainbows again.”

She pulled the two kids in for a hug, holding them tight and pressing kisses to both their heads as Karen Clayton stepped into the foyer.

“Hello, Jamie,” she greeted with a hint of a smile, wiping her hands on a dish towel before coming over to greet her with a tight hug of her own. 

“Hi, Mrs. Clayton,” the brunette offered the older woman a sympathetic smile. From day one, she had never been Karen’s biggest fan. But she knew how to be civil.

“Jamie, it’s been—“

“Nearly twenty years since we’ve known each other and I can call you ‘Karen’, I know,” she chuckled, getting a bit of one in return. She really needed to stop trying to lighten the mood in this house today. Not everyone coped with humor like she did. “I’ll remember one day.”

The middle aged woman nodded, squeezing her hands with a sigh, “Well...Danielle’s upstairs. We’re going to head to the church in about twenty minutes.”

“Thank you,” she offered her a tight lipped smile, watching as the kids followed their grandmother to the kitchen before starting up the spiral staircase. She knew her way around this house like the back of her hand. It would feel like a crime if she didn’t know her way around backwards, forwards, sideways, and with her eyes closed. 

Passing Flora’s room on one side of the hallway and Miles’s right across from it, she passed their shared bathroom and the linen closet before approaching the pristine white wooden door, hesitating in front of it. As many hours as she’d put in mentally preparing for this, it wasn’t nearly enough. She could comfort the kids, sure, she could offer a shoulder for Karen or Judy to cry on. But this…No amount of preparation could ever make her ready to face the woman behind the door.

**August 1971**

“Fuck,” Jamie muttered, running after her basketball as it rolled into the grass. Her dad had installed the hoop over the garage door earlier that day, apparently picking up on how bored she and her brothers were. Mikey and Denny hogged the ball all day, and now that the sun was going down and it was their night to wash dishes, she had the ball and hoop all to herself.

She jumped up, launching the ball at the hoop again, groaning in frustration when it bounced off the rim again and rolled into the grass. “Go in the hoop you stupid—“ she was muttering quietly to the basketball when the door of the next house swung open with the sound of shouting coming clearly through it until it was closed again. 

The same blonde girl that had brought a jell-o mold to their door last night came running down the porch steps, stopping in the grass as she curled into herself, holding her cheek and sobbing quietly. 

“You all right?” Jamie found herself asking without even thinking, holding the basketball under her arm as she stepped a bit closer to the shared yard between them. These houses really were entirely too close together. 

At the sound of her voice, the girl flinched with a gasp, wiping at her eyes and straightening her posture. Her blonde hair was still neatly curled and adorned with ribbon, but this time it was in a classy half-up style. And Jamie had a feeling that the way the purple bow in her hair perfectly matched her purple dress was no accident. 

“Didn’t mean to scare you,” she shrugged, stepping a little closer, burying one hand in the pocket of her jeans, “Parents?”

The blonde nodded after a bit of hesitation, wiping her eyes once more. “My mom,” she muttered, looking down at her shiny black mary-janes, “She...she gets kinda scary when she...um...”

The brunette cocked her head to the side curiously, raising her eyebrows in question, “Drinks?” The pristine looking girl seemed timid in her answer, but she nodded nevertheless, confirming Jamie’s suspicions. “Mine too,” she offered her sympathy through a tight, crooked smile, “Happens more often than I’d like. Sometimes for no reason.”

The girl sniffled and pressed the skin of her reddened cheek with a bit of a hiss. “Sh-she’s never...I don’t…” she practically whimpered as fresh tears started to fall from her eyes again. Jamie could see them clearly in the glow of the streetlights even from about ten feet away.

“Wait here a second,” she dropped her basketball to the grass before running up the porch steps and into her house. 

“Hey, what’s the rush?” Dennis chuckled, just nearly missing crashing into his daughter as she zoomed around her family members to get to the refrigerator, “Hey, don’t let those peas thaw, they’re for tomorrow’s dinner!”

“Gotcha, Dad,” Jamie muttered and closed the sliding freezer drawer under the fridge, maneuvering around everyone again with the bag of frozen peas in her hands until she was back out the front door, meeting the sniffling blonde who was now sitting in the grass of their shared front lawn. 

“Here,” Jamie sat beside her, surprised at her own willingness to help this stranger. Maybe it was because she felt bad. She knew what it was like to have shitty parents. Or at least regular parents who do shitty things. The least she could do was help someone else out.

“Frozen peas?”

“It’ll help with the swelling. I dunno if your mum gotcha hard enough to leave a bruise, but it’ll help with that too,” the eleven year old shrugged, handing over the bag and watching as the blonde pressed it to her cheek.

“This feels silly,” she mustered up a chuckle, though Jamie could hardly make out a smile around the bag that covered the side of her face.

“Bet you’d feel sillier starting school next week with half a purple face,” the brunette shrugged, letting out a chuckle of her own as the girl turned to face her. Bright blue eyes shined under the orange streetlight and Jamie felt the need to turn her attention to her discarded basketball, suddenly very interested in counting how many dots pebbled the surface. 

She could hear the bag rustle beside her before a hand was jutted out in her line of sight, throwing off her count.

“I’m Danielle,” she looked up to see the blonde smiling at her, showing off a row of braces on her top teeth. Maybe it was just from the lighting, but even behind the metal, Danielle had one of the brightest smiles Jamie had ever seen. 

“Uh...Jamie,” she gently took her neighbor’s hand with a tight smile, finally letting her own teeth show when Danielle shook her hand enthusiastically. 

“What grade are you going into?”

“I guess you’d call it...sixth? I’m eleven.”

“Me too! And Eddie. He’s my best friend. He lives down the street on the corner. Did you move here from Scotland or something?”

“England.”

“Oh, sorry. Yours doesn’t sound like any English accent I’ve ever heard.”

God this girl was chatty.

“I’m from Northern England,” Jamie nodded curtly with her lips pressed into an uncomfortable line. 

“What brought you to Iowa?”

“Still not sure,” she snorted, shaking her head, “My dad just keeps saying it’s so we can have a better life. Whatever that means.”

“Well...England’s probably a lot better than here, believe me,” Danielle pulled her knees to her chest after taking another break from pressing the frozen peas to her face. 

“S’all right so far.”

“Jamie, Dad says to come inside!” Mikey’s voice interrupted as he poked his head out the front door. 

She called back to him, telling him she’d be right in before turning back to Danielle. “My little brother,” she explained as she moved to get up, wiping grass from her jeans as the blonde wiped off her skirt, “You okay to go back home?”

Danielle looked back at her house behind her, lingering a bit before facing her again, “I think I’ll go to Eddie’s for a little bit. But thank you for the uh…” she trailed off, moving to hand the bag of frozen peas back to the brunette.

“Keep it. I fuckin’ hate peas,” she waved a hand, shaking her head as she took a step back. Her neighbor wore a stunned look on her face as she released an uncomfortable chuckle, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Right. Potty mouth. Sorry,” Jamie winced, “Get it from my mum.”

“It’s...it’s okay. Well, um...I guess I’ll see you around, Jamie.”

“Yeah,” the eleven year old watched as the blonde turned in her mary-janes and started down the sidewalk. She couldn’t place the feeling that had made a home in her chest, but it wasn’t entirely unpleasant despite being so foreign. 

“Jamie!”

“Fuck off, Mikey, I’m coming!” she groaned, rolling her eyes as she picked up the basketball and made her way back inside.

**October 1990**

Pressing her forehead to the white door, Jamie sighed and squared her shoulders, picking her head up and turning the silver doorknob. The first thing that greeted her was Wally, a fluffy golden retriever just a few months older than Miles. The dog was part of quite a few fond memories that were lodged in her brain.

“Hey, boy,” she whispered, bending down to scratch his head before watching him make his way back across the room, jumping up on the bed where a lump of black fabric and blonde hair was curled up, facing away from her.

“Dani?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello again! i’m back with a silly little monday update. thank you to everyone who read the first chapter and decided to keep on reading. 
> 
> just fyi, the flashbacks won’t always take place in the same year/time period. for instance this chapter has two flashbacks to 1971 and one to 1973. But i always label them so it’s hopefully not too confusing.
> 
> but also if it helps anyone keep track of their ages, Jamie was born June 1960 and Dani was born September 1960.
> 
> also there’s tw for a few brief mentions of child abuse.

**September 1971**

_There she was just walkin’ down the street singin’_  
 _Do wah diddy diddy dum diddy do_  
 _Tappin’ her fingers and shufflin’ her feet singin’_  
 _Do wah diddy diddy dum diddy do_

Jamie grumbled at her desk, hunched over her math homework. She _hated_ fractions. She hated _homework_. She hated teachers that _assigned_ homework on the first day of school. And she hated noisy neighbors whose bedroom windows were ten feet from hers.

_She looked good_  
_She looked fine_

The singing, slightly off-key and pitchy, continued to come through her window along with the music. If she didn’t get her homework done by dinner, she was toast. Getting up, she practically stomped to the window, tearing the ratty curtain (with the holes that her mother kept forgetting to patch up) the side, nearly blinding herself with the incoming sunlight. 

_Now we’re together nearly every single day singin’_  
_Do wah diddy diddy dum diddy do_

“Hey!” she called loudly across the short distance between her house and the next, unable to help the slight chuckle that bubbled from her chest when she saw Danielle through the next window. The blonde nearly jumped out of her skin with a yelp as her body went rigid and a blush became clear on her face, making it obvious that she wasn’t aware that she had an audience.

“First of all, it’s ‘ _snapping_ her fingers’. Not ‘tapping’. Second, I’m trying to do my math homework.”

“Sorry,” Danielle offered her a slight smile, her face still beet red from embarrassment. Even darker than her deep rose colored dress. Why did this girl always dress like a member of The Brady Bunch?

It was a pleasant surprise when Jamie had learned that the window across from hers actually _wasn’t_ to the bedroom of a creepy old man. Maybe if she had paid a little more attention, she would’ve realized that the adjacent room was all pinks and purples a lot sooner than just a few days after moving in.

Nodding curtly, Jamie just moved to close her window, willing to put up with the stuffy summer heat over the distractions from outside. But with her fingers on the wooden frame, she hesitated, seeing her neighbor sit on the edge of her bed after turning down the volume on her portable record player. Jamie hadn’t really seen much of her around, not that she cared. Since they met in their conjoined front yards, this was the first time she’d said more than two words to her outside of Mrs. Vaughn’s science class today. And even then, it was just to ask for a pencil.

“You okay?” she asked, unable to stop herself, “I mean after...y’know...last week?” It was weird to think that they’d only lived in this house for a week. It felt like forever, and not in a good way.

Danielle just nodded, picking at the dried skin of her lower lip as she glanced between Jamie and her own lap, “Yeah. The, uh...the peas...they really helped.”

Jamie watched as the girl from her science class flashed her big metal-filled smile at her, and found herself smiling back. “Well, good,” she gave a single nod, her hands still up on the wooden frame of the window, ready to pull the pane down, “See you tomorrow, I guess. Mum’s gonna flip if I don’t get these fractions done.”

“Wait, do you need any help? I love math!”

The brunette made a face at that. Who loves math? Science, maybe. Maybe even history, but _math_? “You any good at fractions, then?”

“Oh, those are easy.”

“Easy?” eyebrows raised in disbelief, “You sound awfully sure of yourself.”

“Well, I’m gonna be a teacher when I grow up. I kinda have to be good at math in order to teach others how to do it,” Danielle chuckled, wringing her fingers nervously, “I can teach you if you want.”

Jamie looked up at her own hands, gripping tightly to the window pane. She could easily just close it and shove the curtain back into place. Maybe it was rude, but she wasn’t interested in making any friends. And she certainly wasn’t interested in owing anyone any favors. But looking back at her neighbor, watching the way she looked so eager to help as she caught her bottom lip under braces-covered teeth, Jamie couldn’t help but sigh and nod her head again. “Guess that would be okay.”

**October 1990**

“Dani?”

The lump hardly moved. Jamie knew her too well. Dani would become an unmoving blob on her bed at the most minor inconveniences. She got a B on a chemistry test in 10th grade and hardly moved from her bed the whole afternoon after coming home from school. 

But this wasn’t a B on a test when she expected an A. This was the death of her husband. In the near-twenty years that Jamie had known her, she’d never had to see Dani through something like this. The only death Dani had ever really had to deal with personally in the last two decades was from her pet goldfish. And even in eighth grade, Jamie was there to help her through it. 

With a deep breath, Jamie followed Wally towards the bed, following him up onto the mattress. “Hey, stranger,” she mumbled and pressed against her best friend’s back, wrapping an arm around her to spoon her from behind as she placed a kiss to the back of her head. “What, no hello?” she added lightly, following the silence.

“ _You’re_ the stranger,” the blonde mumbled, moving into the warmth of Jamie against her back despite her dismissive response.

Jamie released the slightest scoff, still holding her best friend close, linking Dani’s cold fingers in her warm ones. “Come on, it’s only been a month since I’ve been back.” 

She would’ve been back in town sooner if Dani or _anyone_ had called her when the accident happened. She didn’t even hear about it from Dani. She had been sitting in her office in downtown Des Moines, getting ready to head back to her apartment for the night, when her assistant had patched Karen Clayton through to her desk phone. 

_Yesterday_ , she heard about the accident that happened a _week_ ago. And she was furious. Knowing Dani, considering her current state after a week of being a widow, she was in no condition to call her. Jamie didn’t hold that against her. Judy O’Mara would’ve been the next person on the phone tree that Jamie would have assumed would give her a call. But the woman’s son died. She didn’t hold that against her either. 

But Karen? They were civil with each other, but they’d never been each other’s biggest fans. But to keep Jamie in the dark for nearly a week over something like this? That was worse than any low blow she’d expect from Karen Clayton. And the performance the brunette had put on for her just minutes ago downstairs was Oscar-worthy, if she did say so herself, considering how pissed she was at the woman. 

Breathing in the strawberry shampoo (typical Dani), Jamie just tightened her fingers around the blonde’s, feeling the way they began to tremble with the rest of Dani’s body as the sound of sniffles filled her ears. 

_”You could’ve called me. Why didn’t you call me?”_ was on the tip of Jamie’s tongue. She wanted to ask so badly. Why had she only just heard about this yesterday? She would have rescheduled her meetings. She would have been here as soon as she could. She would have watched the kids, helped get the house ready for guests, whatever Dani needed. She’d always done whatever Dani needed. She’d always been there when she needed her most. And Dani was there for her too. That was how their friendship worked. Even before they really became friends.

**September 1971**

“So from here, you just cross multiply,” Jamie watched as Danielle leaned over her desk as they shared her wooden chair. Though, the brunette was pushed nearly all the way to the side of the seat, unconsciously making more room for her classmate. Just being polite.

She watched as the pencil dragged across the paper, connecting the numbers in penmanship that was impressive for an eleven year old. Danielle’s words were really going in one ear and out the other. Jamie would never understand fractions. She was better with words than numbers. 

“See?” the blonde smiled, handing the pencil back over to her, “Think you can do the next one on your own?”

“God, you even _sound_ like a teacher,” Jamie chuckled, shaking her head as she attempted to solve the next problem from their textbook, “I don’t think you look like one, though.”

“I shouldn’t, I’m only eleven. Well, almost,” Dani giggled, “Besides, how do you _look_ like a teacher?”

“I mean, have you _seen_ our teachers? I don’t think you’re gonna look like that when you grow up. All…” she shook her head, searching for the words as blue eyes stared intently at her, “...I dunno, old and frumpy. Plus, your name’s Danielle. Teachers are all called things like…Mavis and Bertram.”

The blonde laughed at the names Jamie had picked out, and laughed even harder at the face she made as the names left her mouth. “Well, you don’t call...teachers by their first names,” she said breathlessly through her laughter.

“No, but _still!_ ” Jamie found herself laughing along with her. And she didn’t hate it. “Danielle is a cool name. Too cool for a teacher,” she told her genuinely after the laughter had faded, turning back to her homework. 

But Danielle just shook her head and tucked her perfectly curled hair behind her ear, “I hate it. I never felt like a ‘Danielle’.”

“At least you weren’t given a _boy’s_ name,” Jamie rolled her eyes.

“I’m sure there’s plenty of girl Jamies out there.”

“You ever met one?”

“Of course I have.”

“When?”

“Last week,” Danielle started laughing again, “There’s a girl Jamie sitting right next to me.”

“I meant _besides_ me,” the eleven year old rolled her eyes with a chuckle, shaking her head, “So what do you wanna be called? Since you hate your name?”

“I dunno,” she shrugged in response, “My dad used to call me Dani. I really liked that. No one else calls me that, though. Even when I ask.”

“I could call you that,” Jamie offered, searching her blue eyes briefly, “If you want me to, that is. Though, I think it’s pretty silly that you _want_ a boy’s name.”

“It’s not a boy’s name. It’s spelled D-A-N-I. Like that,” Dani explained as she wrote it out on the side margin of Jamie’s homework in swirly letters, dotting the ‘I’ with a little flower.

The brunette looked over the name, committing it to memory. “Dani it is, then,” she nodded, offering her a bit of a smile, “No more Danielle.”

**October 1990**

Crawling over Dani, Jamie climbed down to the floor, kneeling in front of where she was lying practically on the edge of the bed, finally seeing her face for the first time since her 30th birthday last month. Even with puffy eyes and a blotchy face, she was still her same beautiful Dani. Just much more broken than she’d ever seen her.

Actually that was a lie. She’d seen Dani more distraught than this. But she didn’t like to think about that. That was fourteen years ago. And it was the worst night of her life. 

“Hey,” she whispered, brushing strands of blonde back from her face, looking into the blue eyes that were nowhere near as bright as she was used to, “You remember when we were like, thirteen? And Judy took us all to the drive-in to see Robin Hood?”

Dani nodded her head, still solemn, but confused as to why it was being brought up.

“Remember how you and I went to the concession stand and snuck over to the other side of the field where The Exorcist was showing?”

“Yeah,” she whispered with a sniffle, still confused, “I didn’t think I would ever sleep again.”

Jamie’s lips curled into a slight nostalgic grin, “But you slept. Eventually.”

“Yeah, cause I’d make you come through my window and keep me company,” Dani rolled her eyes with a scoff of laughter. Jamie recalled many nights between them in those years, sneaking out of their own beds to join the other in theirs. Being more of a risk-taker, Jamie was often the one who would sneak out in the middle of the night, grab the wooden ladder that was always laid down in the grass against the side of Dani’s house, and climb up to her window. 

They faced the same consequences from their parents. Corporal punishment wasn’t something uncommon between their households. But Jamie was much more used to it than Dani. She could take a hit without crying. And she’d much rather get herself in trouble for sneaking out than have Dani face the wrath of Karen.

“But you still slept. You got over that fear eventually, right?” she continued, cocking her head to the side as she continued to rake fingers through her long, blonde hair. “I know it’s a stupid comparison. Linda Blair projectile vomiting pea soup is a cake-walk compared to this, but—“

Dani’s eyes squeezed shut as more tears fell from behind the lightly shadowed lids. But she laughed. And the sound was something that Jamie had never been happier to hear. She’d heard Dani laugh plenty of times. She was the person who could make Dani laugh the hardest, and she loved to gloat about it. But in a moment like this, knowing that her best friend was so heartbroken, Jamie couldn’t stop the tear of relief that fell from her own eye as she laughed with her.

“I mean it,” she cupped Dani’s flushed cheek, looking into the eyes that still shined with tears despite the laughter that had taken over her for the brief moment, “Sleeping after seeing that movie was something you thought would be impossible. And I know you think it’s impossible that you’ll ever feel okay again after this.”

“How do you know?”

“Cause you’re my best friend. Known you just about my whole life, haven’t I? We’ve been neighbors, lab partners, roommates, co-workers...Hell, I’m the godmother to your kids, Dani. That’s all gotta count for something.”

With a hint of a smile, Dani sniffled as she reached up for the hand that was running through her hair, linking her fingers with Jamie’s affectionately and holding on tight. “I’m so sorry, Jamie,” she mumbled in a barely audible whisper, averting her eyes.

“For what?”

A tongue peaked out to run over her painted pink lips before her mouth opened to speak.

“Danielle?” Karen came into the room as she knocked, “It’s time to head out, sweetheart. Jamie, are you going to follow us there? You remember the way, I’m sure.”

“Yeah, I’ll—“

“No, she can ride with us,” Dani sat up wiping gently under her eyes, turning to Jamie with a sure look, “You’re riding with us. Please?”

The look in Dani’s eyes was something Jamie was so familiar with. It was pleading, it was desperate. And she’d seen that look so many times. For instance, in times when Dani would silently beg her to tell Karen that they spent the night studying when they’d really been at a party. She’d seen that look when Dani needed her. When she needed her to lie for her, because she was incapable of lying to her mother, or when she needed Jamie to invite her over for dinner so she didn’t have to be home alone with whatever boyfriend her mom had that week. 

“Yeah,” she nodded as she straightened her knees and stood up straight from where she was crouched, “Yeah, I’ll ride along.”

“Well...the kids are putting their jackets on, so please don’t be long.”

“Yes ma’am,” the brunette nodded politely, holding her hands at her hips as the door closed behind her best friend’s mother again. “You ready?” she asked gently, combing her fingers through Dani’s loose hair, fixing it up from where it had gone flat from the pillow under her head.

“No,” Dani’s shoulders slumped after a deep breath, looking up from where they were standing nearly toe-to-toe. 

“Hey,” Jamie whispered, holding a hand up between them with her pinkie extended, “It’s gonna be all right, Poppins. Promise.”

Dani pressed her lips into a tight line and nodded, linking her own pinkie finger tightly with hers before Jamie leaned down to press a lingering kiss to her knuckles.

**June 1973**

A light was flashing in her eyes.

Again. 

For the fourth night in a row, to be exact. Rubbing her eyes, Jamie groaned and sat up, squinting in the bright light that was coming through her window. Getting up, she trudged to the window in her long sleep shirt and sleep shorts, yawning as she opened it.

“Again?” she whispered across the space between their houses. Thankfully it was summer vacation and they didn’t have to be up for school. Otherwise these past few days would’ve been hell. After being woken up four nights in a row by Dani shining her flashlight into her bedroom window to wake her up, Jamie was sure that she’d be cranky enough to cuss out a teacher if she had to go to school. 

“Please?” 

That was all Dani _ever_ had to say to get her way from Jamie. And she knew that. But that didn’t stop her from widening her bright blue eyes and poking out her lower lip in a pout sometimes. That face was Jamie’s kryptonite. 

Sighing, the brunette reached for the rope she’d made of old shirts and towels, skillfully knotted and roped together and tied around the leg of the radiator, and threw it out the window before bravely climbing out and down the side of her house. She grabbed the wooden ladder that always laid in the grass on the side of Dani’s house and lifted it with a bit of effort. She was a lot stronger now, at thirteen, than she was last year when she started climbing up to Dani’s room when she needed company.

Climbing the ladder once it was securely leaned against the house, Jamie made her way up to Dani’s room, ducking into the window before being pulled into a tight hug. Just like every other night this week.

“You’re exhausting me,” she chuckled playfully, keeping her voice down. Karen’s door was just down the hall.

_”You_ dragged me away from the concession stand to watch part of that stupid scary movie. It’s your fault I can’t sleep anymore,” Dani lisped around her retainer as she crossed her arms over her long pink nightgown, double checking that her door was locked before guiding Jamie to her canopy bed. 

Rolling her eyes, the brunette just climbed under the covers, attempting to get comfy. She really hated Dani’s mattress. It was so stiff just like everything else in that house. “You see your own mother before she has her coffee every morning and the _movie_ is what you’re afraid of?” she whispered, raising an eyebrow in question at her best friend.

Dani just laughed quietly, shoving her shoulder as she lowered herself onto one of the pillows, “My mom can be pretty scary, but at least her head can’t turn a full 360 degrees.”

“That you _know_ of.”

Shaking her head at her, Dani just snorted another laugh before letting out a yawn. “Thank you,” she mumbled sleepily, “For always coming to my rescue. Eddie would never sneak out to come through my window like you do.”

“Lucky bastard doesn’t live where you can shine a flashlight through his window and ask him to,” Jamie smirked, chuckling when Dani smacked her arm over her oversized t-shirt. “Hey, it’s my pleasure,” she sighed after coming down from her laughter, “What are best friends for?”

“We’ll always be best friends, right?”

“Long as I can help it.”

“Promise?”

Jamie’s lips curled into a smile when Dani held her pinkie out to her, looking for reassurance that she’d always be with her. Jamie knew she couldn’t promise anything. She knew that anything could happen that would separate them. But even when they grew up, and Dani no longer lived in the house next door, Jamie knew that she would always _try_. 

And she _would_ try. She couldn’t guarantee tomorrow. But she could guarantee that regardless of what tomorrow and every following day brought, she would try to make sure that their friendship withstood the test of time. She’d never met anyone like Dani before. And there were times when she didn’t think she needed to meet anyone else ever again. The pigtailed girl that handed her a jell-o mold on her front porch two years ago had become her most important person. 

Curling her little finger around Dani’s, she smiled warmly before leaning down to press a kiss to her friend’s pale knuckles. 

“Promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just gals being pals. see y’all next monday! i’m on twitter @chonisdamie if you ever have questions or just wanna say hi :D


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy surprise update day! i’m doing pretty well with getting chapters written, so i figured i’d drop a little extra one today. but after this we’re back to our normal monday schedule unless i REALLY start cranking some words out.
> 
> tw for war inflicted minor character death

**February 1977**

“Have you thought about applying to any colleges yet?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“What’s the point?” Jamie rolled her eyes, green irises nearly disappearing in the back of her head as Dani brought up college for the upteenth time. They were still in their junior year of high school, but Dani kept on pressing, telling her that junior year was the most important year of college prep.

The blonde scoffed and looked up from where she was doing her calculus homework against the florist counter, watching her best friend put together an arrangement of pink and red flowers. Valentine’s Day was coming up and the Johnsons had Jamie hard at work with making bouquets and arrangements for special orders. And she had to admit that they couldn’t have picked anyone better for the job. Jamie had a way with plants and flowers; and she certainly had an eye for beauty.

“What do you mean, ‘what’s the point’? It’s college, Jay. It’s…” she trailed off, flicking her tongue out over her lips as she thought deep and hard about what the point of college was. She actually didn’t really know. “Well, isn’t it what we’re supposed to do?”

Jamie looked at her from around the glass vase of carnations, cocking an eyebrow at her. She wasn’t going to get into this again. Dani always did what she thought was supposed to be done, or what other people wanted her to do. It was the reason she started dating Eddie the summer before high school. It was the reason she joined the cheerleading squad. 

The only thing in Dani’s life that was just _Dani’s_ was her passion for teaching. And Jamie. According to most people, Jamie was the stick in the bike spokes of Dani Clayton’s life. Everyone always assumed that the British transfer student would lead the neighborhood’s own mini pageant queen down a destructive path. But she hadn’t yet. And even if she did, Dani wouldn’t trade Jamie for anything, no matter what anyone said.

“If it was tradition to jump off a cliff after graduation with a slim chance of survival, would you do it? And can you hand me the card for Mr. Stevens’ order?” Jamie tied a white ribbon into a bow around the neck of the vase and held her hand out for the little personalized card that had been requested with the arrangement. Dani had been writing them for her in between homework assignments. She had better penmanship. 

“That’s a little extreme, don’t you think?” the blonde just chuckled lightly and handed her the card, stretching her back a little from where she’d been hunched against the counter. Thankfully the flower shop was pretty dead after school, so the Johnsons didn’t mind that she hung around sometimes. 

She didn’t get to see Jamie nearly as often anymore. But she knew that she picked up as many shifts at the florist as possible to avoid going home. And Dani preferred helping out here than going to Eddie’s house after school. He was always trying to get her alone in his room lately.

Jamie shook her head with a hint of a smile as she tucked the plastic rod into the vase, attaching the card to it before fluffing up the white bow. “Look, I’m just saying, college isn’t the only option. People go to college to further their education so they can get a job in a field that they love, doing the _things_ that they love. Why would I put myself in debt when I’ve already got that?” 

Dani’s lips curved into a slanted smile as Jamie gestured to the flower arrangement she’d put together so diligently. She had a point. “But you can’t make a living off of $2.50 an hour, Jamie. Not for the rest of your life.”

“S’not always about the money,” she shrugged, frustrating the blonde even more as she started on the next order. They only had about two hours until closing time and the Johnsons were starting to put their foot down when it came to Jamie staying late to do unpaid work. They were good people who didn’t want her to do more work than necessary. They always told her to go home and have dinner with her family. But they didn’t know about Jamie’s current home life. And the brunette refused to tell them. She didn’t want their pity.

At her response, Dani fell quiet, looking down at her homework again as an old song by The Zombies came through the static-y radio behind the counter. “Eddie wants me to go with him to the University of Iowa,” she muttered absentmindedly, dragging her pencil along her notebook paper.

“You gonna?”

“I dunno. I was hoping you’d try to get in too. We could be roommates!” her blue eyes widened with hope, silently pleading with her best friend to consider it. They hadn’t been more than a few miles apart since they were eleven years old. 

“Dani—“

“I know you don’t...like the idea of college,” she interrupted, leaning back against the counter, as if her point would be better proven if she got closer, “But I don’t wanna...I don’t know…” Green eyes stared back at her curiously, patient as they ever were when she was at a loss for words. “I just want my best friend there with me. I mean it’s _college_ , Jamie! They say they’re supposed to be the best years of our lives, I don’t wanna live the best years of my life without you.”

The brunette bit the inside of her cheek as she released a huff through her nose. “You’ve got Eddie,” she murmured, turning around to gather the next bunch of flowers so she could trim the stems. 

“Eddie’s not my best friend.”

“He used to be.”

“Til you came along.”

“You’re impossible, Poppins,” she rolled her eyes with a playful chuckle.

Dani just grinned at the old nickname that had been gifted to her when they were twelve on a bike ride around town. Back before their world became so complicated. “What kind of flowers did he order for me?”

“I’ve been sworn to secrecy,” Jamie smirked without looking up from her work.

“Red roses again?”

Her best friend looked up at her briefly, pressing her lips into a tight line as she trimmed more stems. “You didn’t hear it from me,” she chuckled at the way Dani groaned and slumped down onto the counter with her head on her arms, “Hey, red roses aren’t bad. At least they’re...fitting with the holiday. As silly of a holiday as I think it is.”

“They’re nice, but they’re not my _favorite_ ,” Dani picked her head up, “It’s sad that you know my favorite flower better than my own boyfriend.”

Nodding her head a bit in agreement, the brunette couldn’t help but chuckle internally at the memory of the look on Edmund’s face when she’d given Dani a bouquet of azaleas for her last birthday. Maybe it was petty, but Dani deserved to get her favorite flowers from _somebody_. Jamie had even arranged them herself. _And_ rung them up at full price at the register. Dani was worth much more than her employee discount.

**October 1990**

The ride to the church was quiet. Even Miles and Flora, normally so outgoing and playful, were quiet as mice. Jamie hadn’t known those kids to be quiet or sit still for more than a minute since they were newborns. It was such a strange sight to see as she sat in between them in the back seat of Karen’s old station wagon; in the same middle spot she used to sit as a kid when Dani would beg her mother to take Jamie along with her and Eddie to the community pool on hot summer days.

Jamie’s throat bobbed a little as they pulled up to the church. The parking lot was nearly filled. Edmund always was a popular one. Star of the track team, class valedictorian, and one of the most respected optometrists in town. Every pew in the chapel was bound to be filled. 

Helping Flora with the seatbelt of her booster seat, the brunette slid out of the back seat with her as Miles got out on the other side. The only person that remained unmoving was Dani in the passenger seat. From what Jamie could see through the windows, the woman was stone still as she stared ahead at the towering church that was littered with funeral-goers dressed in black.

Karen sighed and adjusted her purse strap on her shoulder as she moved to step around to the passenger door. But Jamie held a hand out, taking a few short strides in her black heels to stop her. “I’ll get her,” she insisted with a nod and a reassuring smile. God knows what Karen would say to her daughter to get her out of the car.

The older woman nodded, taking her grandkids’ hands before leading them towards the front steps of the church. Meanwhile, Jamie slowly made her way around the station wagon, opening the passenger door to reveal her very stiff best friend. She sighed, leaning against the open door with her hands in the pockets of her blazer.

Her fingers gripped the nearly empty box of marlboros that she knew she’d need at some point today. She’d smoked three of them just on the hour drive from the city.

Sighing, Jamie pulled the little carton out and fished her lighter from her purse, lighting up the end of a cigarette before taking a long drag and flicking the ashes into the pavement. Dani was still unmoving, simply staring ahead at the church as people started making their way inside. 

“Here,” the brunette crouched down a little, offering the cigarette out to her. She knew Dani wasn’t a smoker. But ever since they were teenagers, on occasion, she would snag them from between Jamie’s fingers to take a light puff for herself, claiming it calmed her nerves.

_”What do **you** have to be nervous about?”_ she remembered asking as they watched a meteor shower together from their spot on a blanket in Dani’s backyard. Being fourteen seemed so terrible at the time, and now she’d give anything to go back and do some things over.

_”Watching the stars makes me feel too small,”_ Dani had coughed a little as she handed the cigarette back to her, folding her arm back behind her head, _“Like...there’s so much out there and we’re just...here, y’know? Like grains of sand.”_

It got Dani to move her head at least, so she could see the cigarette she was taking. Jamie leaned against the open door of the car with her hands back in her pockets, shaking her head when Dani wordlessly reached over to hand the cigarette back, “Finish it. Think you need it more than me.”

Dani just nodded, bringing her hand back to take another long drag, lowering her head as the smoke passed through her lips. “I have to face all those people,” she spoke so low that Jamie had to crouch down to hear her better, “All those people who are gonna...look at me with so much...pity, so much sorrow…” 

She blinked as a single tear fell from her eye, leaving a bit of a dark trail from her mascara that she had so foolishly put on her bottom lashes this morning. “And none of them know,” she breathed a bitter laugh, bringing the cigarette to her lips again, “Nobody knows.”

Jamie stared at her, watching her every move with curious eyes. “Knows what?” she asked after a bit of hesitation. 

“That this is all my fault,” the blonde shook her head again, flicking the ashes into the tray between the seats, “That they’re all here because of me.”

Thin brows wrinkled together as Jamie watched Dani at least begin to relax in her bitterness. “What do you mean?”

Tears shined in her blue eyes as she kept them straight ahead at the church, remaining silent until she put the cigarette out in the tray, leaving it with the others that her mother had yet to clean up. “We should head in,” she said quickly, her voice back to normal as if she hadn’t just on the verge of a complete breakdown. 

But Jamie just watched her step out of the car, brush out the wrinkles in her dress, and stand tall with a confident smile. Though her smile was clearly fake, Jamie played along anyway, reaching forward to brush the black tear streak from her face with a gentle thumb. “Mascara at a funeral. You never learn, do you, Poppins?”

**January 1975**

Jamie was leaned back against the tree closest to where the small crowd stood. It was really just her family, Dani, the O’Maras, a few soldiers and a few of Denny’s friends from high school. Hardly a crowd, but a bigger crowd than she’d expected for her arse of a brother. She really didn’t want to be around anyone else, though; Even if they were all huddled together for warmth as her older brother was lowered into the snowy ground.

He’d barely been in Vietnam for a year. Jamie remembered telling him how stupid it was to go over there voluntarily. The draft was long over, they didn’t _need_ him. And to be honest, no one was even sure why they were over there in the first place.

Jamie flinched at the three pops that rang out as the soldiers held their rifles towards the sky. She didn’t know what it meant, but considering her brother died from a gunshot wound, she thought it was in pretty poor taste. But apparently it was tradition. Tradition wasn’t always right, in her mind. 

At the sound of her mother’s sobbing, Jamie just leaned her head back against the tree, watching as a blonde in a black peacoat broke away from the small crowd. Jamie had asked for her space when Dani tried to join her at the tree before, but now...yeah, she could use the company. She was surprised that she hadn’t given in sooner, considering Dani kept stealing glances in her direction during the small service.

“Why would you wear mascara to a funeral?” Jamie chuckled quietly enough to not be heard by anyone else. Laughing at a funeral wasn’t exactly polite. 

Dani just released a quiet, watery breath of laugher as another black tear slid down her cheek, “I wanted to look nice.”

Jamie just pushed herself off the tree, shaking her head as she swiped her cold fingers across Dani’s flushed cheeks. “You look better when you’re not trying to be Alice Cooper,” she smirked, wiping the last of the tear streaks from her best friend’s face.

Dani just sniffled and ran her hand under her nose, “Who’s she?”

“Never mind,” the fourteen year old shook her head with the tiniest snort of laughter, “Why are you crying anyway? He was always pulling pranks on you.”

“That’s what big brothers do,” Dani shrugged, “I know he wasn’t _my_ big brother, but it was the closest I ever got to having one. Eddie’s older brothers never tease me like they teased him. Denny treated me like he treated you, y’know? Like another sister.”

Jamie was quiet as she leaned back against the tree. Yeah, Denny could be a prick most of the time. Always putting frogs or ice cubes down the back of her shirt and slinging mashed potatoes at her from across the dinner table. But he was the only older brother she had. 

Some people, like Dani, didn’t have that person to show them around school on their first day, or teach them how to ride a bike when their parents didn’t have the time. Even through all the countless noogies and wedgies over the course of Jamie’s life, her brother was there for her and protected her. 

He was a protector at heart with a playful soul. She never understood why he went to war voluntarily. She thought it was the dumbest thing, risking your life for a country that they didn’t even really like, despite it being their home for the past few years. But thinking back, she knew that it was the defensive nature that he always had that made him want to go. And he wasn’t doing it for the country. He was doing it for their family.

“Jamie?” Dani’s voice brought her out of her thoughts as she flinched at the touch of a cold thumb on her cheek. 

Was she…? 

No, there was no way. Jamie Taylor was not a _cryer_. She hadn’t cried since she broke her arm when she was six. And even then, she was a fighter and only shed a few tears. But now, being gently pulled into Dani’s warm embrace, the brunette could feel her walls come crumbling down for the first time in years. 

Gripping tightly to her black peacoat, Jamie’s breath hitched with every strained sob from the deepest reaches in her chest, releasing every emotion she felt into Dani’s scarf. She was sad, she was _angry_. She was _so_ angry. Angry at her parents, angry at Denny, angry at herself. She should have appreciated him more when he was here, and now it was too late.

“It’s okay,” Dani’s voice soothed into her ear, one hand stroking against her synthetic jacket while the other carded through the fine, curly hairs at the base of her scalp. Jamie had been there for her so many times, comforting her through one thing after another. Now it was her turn to do the same.

“It’s okay.”

**October 1990**

The service was rough. Edmund’s younger brother Carson gave the eulogy. And Jamie, from a few rows behind Dani’s front row pew, was struggling with listening to the cries coming from her best friend. They were quiet. Quieter than most other people in the room. But to Jamie, they were the loudest. Piercing, even, as each one was a direct hit to her chest.

She had never been a big fan of Eddie. For years now, she had watched from afar as he treated Dani with so much less respect and care than she deserved; Or at least what Jamie thought she deserved. 

She would be the one Dani called when Eddie forgot their anniversary _again_ , when even _Jamie_ had remembered and sent a card. At times, she would be there with Dani when Eddie would come home late, reeking of stale beer after a spontaneous night out with his friends. And days later, back when she was still living in town, she would see his name on the order form for a bouquet of red roses with an ‘I’m sorry” card attached. 

Every. Single. Time.

Dani deserved so much more than that. But Jamie had to push that thought aside each time it popped into her head. Because whenever she thought of the type of person Dani truly deserved, she put herself on that pedestal every time, without fail. 

And she couldn’t have that. She couldn’t _want_ that. That was something that just couldn’t happen, no matter how many times the thought crept into her brain while she slept, or while she worked, or while she helped Dani make dinner and put the kids to bed when she would pop by their house to help out.

She was Dani’s best friend. That was all she would ever be. But as much as she found herself wishing that things were different...found herself wondering what would have happened if she hadn’t pushed a drunk Dani away at Ingrid Westfield’s Halloween party when they were sixteen...Jamie knew that being Dani’s friend was better than being nothing to her at all. 

And this was the _last_ place that she should be thinking about being anything more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> have a great weekend and see you again on monday!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i would like to clarify (just in case anyone was questioning my judgement here) that miss dani is just going through a long hard comp het era. that woman’s a lesbian deadass. 
> 
> on with the show.

**June 1972**

Jamie groaned as she felt the edge of her bed dip. She didn’t have to open her eyes to know that it was _way_ too early to be awake. And on the first Monday of summer vacation, no less. Who in the world would have the audacity to—

“Jaaamie,” came a sing-song voice that only made her groan more. 

_Of course._

“Come on, wake up,” Dani shook her arm.

The brunette, newly twelve, just pulled her pillow over her head. “Who let you in?” her voice was muffled under the lump of goose feathers, and she fought to keep her head covered when Dani tugged at the pillow.

“Mikey did. Y’know, you really should tell him not to open the door without asking who’s there. My mom said there’s a crime wave going on.”

“Not in this shitty town,” Jamie snorted, giving in to Dani tugging her pillow.

“Well, I wanna show you something in this _shitty_ town. Or...near it, anyway. So get up,” a blush came to Dani’s cheeks, despite the word coming from her lips so effortlessly. It was the first time Jamie had ever heard her use such an _un-ladylike_ word.

Sitting up, the twelve year old attempted to flatten her wild curls, “Dani Clayton saying ‘shit’. Must be serious,” her eyes widened as she released a sarcastic puff of air before she took in Dani’s outfit. 

With a yellow ribbon holding half her hair up, long blonde tendrils fell over her shoulders that were left uncovered by her yellow tank top that was tucked into a pair of white, high-waisted shorts. She looked like the human embodiment of a daisy. Which reminded Jamie, she needed to ask Louise to help her start a little garden plot in the backyard for the summer.

“It _is_ serious, so get up. Get dressed and brush your teeth. I’m packing you a pop tart and you can eat it when we get there,” Dani just giggled quietly, flashing the braces she was due to get off at the end of the summer. Jamie had never seen her without them before, so she was eager to see what her real teeth looked like. 

She watched as she left the room, wondering what the hell Dani could be waking her up for at— she glanced at her alarm clock and groaned again— _eight_ in the morning. But she got up anyway, trudging to her closet to pull out an old olive green t-shirt (that was a little too small, as she was apparently hitting her growth spurt), and a pair of black piped sweat shorts. 

She neglected the training bra that her mother insisted she start wearing and threw on the clothes before brushing her teeth in the bathroom she shared with her brothers. And once her hair was combed well enough and her face was washed, she slid dirt-covered sneakers on over her socks and made her way down the stairs, still curious about where Dani was planning on taking her so damn early.

“Third grade sounds so exciting! What else did you like to do in school?” she heard Dani’s voice as she nearly tripped down the stairs over her untied shoelaces. But she stopped to tie them once she saw Dani sitting at the kitchen table, talking to Mikey as he played with a few action figures.

“We learned about the planets. I quite liked that,” he smiled, shyly nodding his head. Jamie knew that her little brother liked when Dani would come over. She would help him with his homework sometimes after school and even make ants on a log for everyone to snack on before Dennis and Louise returned home from work. 

Jamie learned that the oddly named snack was peanut butter spread into the curve of a celery stick with raisins lined up on top like actual ants on a log. Jamie hated raisins, and she still hadn’t mentioned that to Dani. But she ate them every time.

“Oi, don’t get him talking about space or we’ll never get to leave,” the brunette chuckled quietly, playfully sticking her tongue out at Mikey after he did it to her first. “Mikey here’s gonna be an astronaut, aren’t you?”

“Yep!” he grinned proudly, “I’d like to go to Jupiter. That’s the biggest planet.”

“That’s right, smarty pants,” Dani smiled, ruffling his hair before looking up at his sister, “You ready?”

Jamie just nodded her head with her lips pressed into a tight line. She hadn’t really hung out with Dani alone too many times before. Usually when they were together, it was at school. When it wasn’t at school, it was at Jamie’s house or the O’Mara’s with Eddie. She had still never been inside Dani’s house.

Eddie was around most of the time. But Eddie was at Boy Scout camp for the next month and a half, and Jamie had to admit, she was looking forward to not having to share Dani’s attention for a while. She knew once he came back, things would go back to normal.

“Be good for Denny, okay? Mum and Dad will have a cow if you nearly break a window again,” she pointed a finger at Mikey as Dani got up from the table.

“Where is Denny anyway?”

“In the attic,” Jamie rolled her eyes, “Dad gave him permission to move all his stuff up there and turn it into his new bedroom. So he’s fixing it up.”

“So now I have the big room all to myself,” Mikey beamed from the table. 

“Yeah, and it was _supposed_ to be _my_ room until you lot stole it from me.”

Dani just smiled at their brief banter before shrugging her shoulders as she held onto the straps of her backpack, “Worked out better for me, I guess. I’d rather have you across from my window than two boys.”

“Don’t blame you,” Jamie snorted before leading Dani out to the garage where they kept the only bike they had to split between the three of them. Denny was hoping to get a job to afford his own soon, but that meant he’d be taking the bike to get to work until he could save up enough for a car.

“So where are we going, exactly?” she asked, wheeling her dad’s old bicycle towards where Dani was straddling her pink one on the sidewalk. It was so _Dani_ , a pink bike with a white basket in the front and colorful streamers hanging from the handles. It was so typical, in fact, that Jamie didn’t even seem surprised the first time she saw it. 

“You’ll see when we get there,” the younger girl sat on the leather seat and took off down the sidewalk, beckoning for Jamie to follow.

Jamie kept up, whether it was right behind her or right beside her as they rode together out of their neighborhood and onto the street. It was a small town and they didn’t live near the busiest part of it, so cars weren’t really an issue. Plus, all the grownups were already at work for the day. Or headed there, at this hour.

“Dani, seriously, where are we going?” Jamie looked from where she was biking beside her. They’d been riding for nearly thirty minutes and they’d just passed the town line. 

“I told you, you’ll see,” she replied almost blissfully, laughing a little as the summer sun hit her skin and the wind blew through her hair. 

Jamie had never seen her so carefree before. She actually had half a mind to question whether their sleepy little town was under a spell that kept Dani so rigid. Because the second they crossed the town line, the blonde had nearly become an entirely different person. 

“This way,” about ten minutes later, Dani took a turn to the left into a neighborhood that looked questionable, even by Jamie’s standards. 

It wasn’t a development like their own. The houses were far apart; Some big, some small. Like it was built back when people had originality and weren’t so desperate to fit in with everyone else. But it was like a ghost town. All the houses had overgrown dead grass in the yards, boarded up windows, crooked shutters, and empty canopy garages. Like no one had lived there for years. 

“Dani…”

“We’re almost there,” the blonde pulled her bike into a turn down the next street.

_Cherry Tree Lane_

Jamie read the faded street sign as her eyebrows knit together in confusion, still following Dani up the road that was void of just about anything but houses that stood alone. They must have been nice in their prime, but whenever they were abandoned, the elements had certainly left their effect on them. 

When they reached the end of the dead end street, Dani pulled her bike to a slow stop, looking up at the house in front of them. It was cute. A light shade of blue. Black shutters, red door, black shingles. Nothing really special about it. It was even average in size. And it was definitely deserted like the rest of them. 

“This is it,” Dani nodded towards the house in front of them, dismounting from her bike and dropping the kick stand while Jamie, with no kick stand, let her bike fall to the cracked pavement without care. 

“Okay…” she looked to her friend, still a bit confused about why she’d woken her up at eight in the morning to bring her to an abandoned house.

But Dani just cocked her head in the direction of the mailbox as they stepped a little closer, “Look at the number.”

The brunette squinted her eyes in the sun, stepping closer to the mailbox to look at the number on the dirt-covered side. “Seventeen?”

“Mmhm.”

“What’s so special about the number seve—“ she stopped to connect the dots in her head as the name of the street flew to the front of her brain. “Seventeen Cherry Tree Lane. Like in Mary Poppins?”

“Yep,” Dani grinned proudly, rocking back and forth on her feet as she clung to her backpack straps.

Jamie just nodded, a slight chuckle escaping her throat as she shrugged her shoulders, stepping back towards the blonde. “Okay, I guess that’s pretty neat. What, did you take me here cause I’m British or something?” 

_”No,”_ Dani rolled her eyes and took her hand, leading her up the long driveway towards the rusted canopy garage. “Mary Poppins is my favorite movie. This _house_ was built in 1960, the year I was born,” she started to explain as they moved past the garage and towards the back yard.

“Okay?”

Dani stopped walking, turning towards Jamie and letting go of her hand, suddenly embarrassed. “I know it’s silly, but...I dunno, I feel like I’m meant to live here, y’know?”

“Not silly,” Jamie shook her head, “Odd coincidence, but not a silly one. How’d you find this place anyway?”

“My dad actually grew up on Sycamore, the next street over. That’s where my grandparents lived, but they died before I was born,” Dani kept walking, twiddling with her own fingers instead of holding onto Jamie’s hand again, “He actually wanted to buy this house after the movie came out in ‘64. My mom says he thought it was a good investment, buying a house with a famous street name and number. Thought it would sell for a lot after a few years.”

“He didn’t know about the books?” Jamie snorted quietly and shook her head.

“I guess not,” Dani muttered, giving a rather glum smile down to her shoes instead of laughing.

Jamie just nodded, stepping through the tangled grass beside her as they reached the back yard where an empty in-ground pool was surrounded by a brick patio. She could only imagine the people who lived here before and what kind of parties they must have been throwing with a backyard like this. “Well, clearly there’s a ‘but’ coming, since you don’t live here now.”

Dani just breathed a light laugh as she moved to sit on the edge, dangling her legs into the empty pool. “But…” she continued as Jamie had suspected, reaching into her backpack for the napkin-wrapped pop tarts she’d toasted for Jamie’s breakfast back at the house, “Mom said some company came in and bought the whole neighborhood. I guess they were planning on building a shopping plaza or something.”

“Another ‘but’ coming,” Jamie chuckled, taking the pop tart from her with a quiet “thank you”. 

“ _But_ , then the US started getting more involved in the war...and...I dunno, I guess money got to be an issue for whatever company it was. They bought all these people out of their homes for nothing. And now the houses are just...here. Empty. My mom thinks they’ve been trying to sell the whole property, but no one’s wanted to buy it.”

The brunette shook her head with another incredulous snort as she bit into the strawberry-filled pastry. “Should just let people buy the houses instead of trying to sell the whole chunk of land.”

“That’s what I’m hoping for,” Dani nodded, swinging her legs so the backs of her white sandals tapped against the edge of the concrete pool, “This house even has a conversation pit in the living room. I think those are _so_ cool.”

“You can see inside?”

“My dad took me inside when I was eight,” she smiled at the memory, “One day over the summer, he told my mom he was taking me to get ice cream. But instead he brought me here, picked the lock on the back door and we explored the whole house. We even made plans for where all the furniture would go if we ever got to move in.”

“Sounds like a cool guy. No offense, but he looks like a stiff. Never took him for the type to pick a lock,” Jamie shrugged, dusting the crumbs off her fingers.

“Huh?”

“What?”

“Who are you talking about?”

“Your dad. The guy that lives in your house that seems to always have a tie on...?”

“Oh that…” Dani breathed a bit of a laugh, “That’s not my dad, that’s Tom. He’s...well, my mom _wants_ me to call him ‘dad’. But he’s just her boyfriend. He moved in last summer a little before you got here.”

Jamie’s eyebrows raised a bit in surprise. The way Dani spoke so fondly of her dad, it made more sense to Jamie now why she had never met the man who was living next door. She’d known Dani for almost a year, but she had only been to her house once for her birthday party last September. And that was just in the backyard.

“He died,” Dani’s shoulders hunched a bit as she wrung her fingers over her white shorts, looking down at her lap, “My dad, I mean...almost three years ago.”

The brunette was quiet for a few beats, wondering what to say. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled after a while, squeezing her eyes shut and wishing she had something better to offer than a simple apology, “Was it, uh...was it in Nam?”

“No, he was just sick for a while. Too sick to get drafted, even. Something to do with his heart, I never really understood what it was. And my mom won’t talk about it,” Dani shook her head, gazing down into the empty pool.

They sat in silence for a while after that, neither of them really sure of what to say. But the silence wasn’t entirely uncomfortable. The birds were chirping in the trees as the morning breeze blew through the overgrown grass. It was a peaceful silence; One that neither of them would mind staying in for a while.

“Well, hey,” Jamie rested her hands on her bare knees, looking over at the eleven year old beside her, “Maybe when we’re older, the company that bought this place will have pulled the stick out their arse and you can buy it and make it yours. Decorate it the way you and your dad talked about, even.”

Dani gave a bit of a toothy grin as she tucked her hair behind her ear, “Yeah, maybe.”

“I mean it. Who knows, maybe when we’re old...like _thirty_ , you’ll be living a practically perfect life here, Poppins. Like you said, you’re meant to live here.”

A heavy blush took over Dani’s face as blue eyes turned to face her. “You really think so?” she asked with a shy grin, surprisingly not appalled by the nickname.

“I’m sure of it.”

**October 1990**

Jamie found it hard to stick by Dani’s side all morning. Not for lack of trying, of course. She’d been seated so far from her at the funeral service. And Dani was surrounded by people at all times, singing their praises about her marriage and offering their deepest condolences. It was nearly impossible to get to her; Even just to check to make sure she was still breathing regularly.

She held her arms around Flora in the back seat of Karen’s car pretty much the whole ride back to the house. Miles was keeping his chin up like his dad always taught him to. Eddie was always on some ‘boys don’t cry’ shit with his son, and it pissed Jamie off more than anything. 

But at least she could offer some comfort to Flora, who held onto her aunt (the closest thing she had to one, anyway) for dear life from her little booster seat. The side of her blazer was probably covered in snot and tears, but Jamie didn’t really care. Years of babysitting Flora, she’d gotten a lot worse on her. She could handle a few boogers. And she certainly wasn’t going to let them stop her from comforting the little girl. 

They pulled up to the house where cars started to line up around the cul de sac and rolled slowly into the garage. “Kids, why don’t you go get washed up,” Karen unbuckled her seatbelt and looked into the backseat, smiling proudly when Miles immediately got out of the car without a word.

“Go on, sprout, do as Grandma says, all right?” Jamie whispered down to Flora as Karen opened the door for them so Flora could slide out.

“Danielle, _please_ go fix your makeup before you start greeting the guests,” the older woman spoke to her daughter up in the passenger seat from where she stood by the open door of the back seat, moving so Jamie could get out. And just like at the church earlier this morning, Dani sat still in her seat, unwilling to get out of the car just yet. 

“I’ve got her, Mrs. C,” Jamie muttered quietly with another reassuring smile, sensing Karen’s frustration with Dani, not that she thought it was at all justified. The woman just nodded and sighed, disappearing into the house before Jamie walked around the station wagon to open the passenger side door again.

“Can we go?” Dani’s voice came through the open door the second Jamie got it open, not giving the brunette a chance to say anything first.

“What?”

“Can we just go there? Just for...a few minutes?”

Jamie knew what she was talking about. But...she couldn’t understand why Dani would want to go now. What was the point? They hadn’t been there in years.

“Dani...you’ve got a house full of people…”

“Just for a little bit, Jamie, just for—“

“It’s across town. It’s a twenty minute drive. Your mum’s gonna go ballistic.”

“Jamie, _please_ ,” Dani’s eyes, usually a bright blue, were like a shade of grey; like she’d lost all the light inside her that made them so bright. And she knew that bringing Dani there would only make them darker. 

Jamie just stared into the deep irises. Dani’s eyes were puffy and red from crying, her face was blotchy and pink, showing even underneath her makeup, and mascara tear tracks still stained her cheeks from the weight of the morning. She looked so desperate that Jamie could practically feel her heart cracking at the sight.

“Come on, then,” she sighed, helping Dani out of the car and onto her feet, shutting the door behind her. Dani wasted no time taking off her heels and dropping them to the concrete garage floor before starting a brisk walk towards Jamie’s truck, brushing past everyone who dared try to stop and talk to her. Karen was definitely going to be pissed about this, but this was what Dani wanted to do. And Jamie always did what Dani needed. 

She followed her down to her green 1969 Ford F100, watching as the blonde climbed into the passenger seat (apparently remembering that the passenger door had a faulty lock). She ignored the whispers of “where is she going?” and “what is she doing?” from the crowd of people that saw Dani practically sprint to the sidewalk, focusing on just getting on the road and getting her best friend away from all this.

And once the engine was on, she was taking off down the street. She could _feel_ Dani exhale in the seat beside her the second they left the neighborhood and pulled onto the main road. About fifteen minutes from now, they would pass their former neighborhood. And five minutes from that point, they would reach the edge of town. 

“Thank you,” the blonde released a breath as if she’d been holding it all day, letting her hair down from where it was tied back with a black scrunchie. 

“Karen’s gonna kill me, I’ll have you know,” Jamie chuckled now that the mood was a little lighter, “Gonna have to sleep with one eye open tonight and make sure she doesn’t poison my breakfast in the morning.”

“You’re still staying over?” Dani turned to her with what looked like relief.

“Course I am. Said I would, didn’t I?”

“You did, I just...with it being such short notice, I didn’t know if it would stay that way...y’know with your work and everything.”

Jamie glanced between her and the road ahead, hating to see her look so down. She knew when Dani was feeling guilty for _something_. She’d given her a vague apology this morning, and then at the church she mentioned Edmund’s death being her fault. It was pure guilt and she knew it. 

At this point, she was sure she knew Dani better than she knew herself. She could pick up on her moods as if Dani had written them out for her in big block letters and underlined them three times. She just wished she had the ability to read her mind so she could find out _why_ she felt that way.

“Some things are more important than work, Poppins,” she reached over for her hand, running her thumb delicately over her cold knuckles.

She drove the familiar path down the road, passing the town limit sign and taking a sharp left onto Maple Avenue. After she drove down the deserted street past Pine Street and Sycamore Road, Jamie uselessly put on her directional to take the familiar right onto Cherry Tree Lane. 

If this place seemed lifeless twenty years ago, it was even worse now. Every house in the neighborhood had all been bulldozed to the ground back in ‘79. It was as if the people who owned the property had waited specifically for Dani to leave for college so they could destroy one of her dreams for the future. 

Even without the dream of owning the practically perfect house at number seventeen, it had been Dani’s _place_. It was where she went to calm down when she felt overwhelmed. It was where she went to feel close to her dad again. The house gave her hope. And though the house she lived in now had been painted to look just like it (Jamie’s idea), it still wasn’t the same.

And now, the two women stared ahead at the vacant property as Jamie parked the truck, facing where the house used to sit. The concrete driveway lead to nothing but a pile of old wood that they didn’t even bother to discard. What hurt the most was that the houses were all torn down for nothing. Whatever plans they had that required them to be removed had fallen through yet again. And the carcasses of what once stood had been left to rot for the last eleven years. 

Dani was quiet as she stared at the wood pile, her throat bobbing as she tried to keep her emotions at bay. She hadn’t been to this spot in a while. She only came back every now and then; And only with Jamie. 

_”Y’know, I’ve never even taken Eddie here?”_ she remembered the blonde looking up from her copy of ‘Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret’ while they sat by the empty pool doing their homework. Back when being fourteen was both the best and worst thing in the world.

_”Why not?”_

_”I dunno. I never felt like he would understand.”_

_”And you thought I would?”_

_”Don’t you?”_

Somehow, every trip back since her special place was destroyed, it still came as a surprise to see the rubble of what could have been. Each time, it was as if Dani just convinced herself that the last time she’d been there was just a dream, and the house would still be standing when she arrived. And each time was a let-down. 

“C’mere,” Jamie sighed with remorse, pulling Dani across the leather bench seat until she was flush to her side, draping an arm around her shoulders to hold her close. She still didn’t know what the point of coming here was. She knew it would only upset Dani more. But apparently it was what Dani needed.

And Jamie _always_ did what Dani needed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fic title finally gets explained. 
> 
> thank you for reading and for your comments on the first few chapters! im back to my every monday update schedule until further notice but hopefully y’all liked getting an extra update on friday :)


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